President Donald J. Trump

I have started this piece probably ten times or more. Each time the implausibility of a President Donald J. Trump administration has caused me to scrap my verbiage and start anew. Like many Americans who have lived their lives aspiring to the higher ideals of American democracy, the thought of four years or more of President Donald J. Trump sends me into a panic of disbelief.

What I am really feeling is hard to write.

Could we be on the verge of the Trump years? There I got it out. It looks on paper as hollow as it sounded floating around in my mind.

Back in February I wrote that you could stick a fork in Donald Trump because he was done, as in finished. Oh how wrong I was to think that the GOP could derail Trump’s populist appeal to white Americans who felt that their government had deserted them in matters of religion, guns, immigration and boy meet girl sexual encounters.

Two weeks ago it became clear that a President Donald J. Trump reign could be a likely outcome of the November General Election. The only thing standing in Trump’s way was the Democratic Party whose primary process had not declared a clear winner for its nomination.

Then last weekend, chaos erupted at the Nevada Democratic Convention, where the state’s Democrats had gathered to select delegates for the Democratic National Convention slated for Philadelphia in July.

When Secretary Hillary Clinton loyalist’s failed to entertain questions from the Bernie or Bust contingent, a shouting match ensued. By some accounts a chair was thrown towards a Clinton loyalist. While a video circulating on social media shows that a chair was lifted into the air, it is unclear if it was thrown.

The Nevada incident brought to head a war of words that has been brewing on social media for several weeks between the Clinton loyalists and the Bernie or Bust army.  Six months from the election and the Democratic Party is as much in disarray as the Republican Party had been for most of this year. Democrats are acting like irrational Republicans and Republicans are acting like sensible Democrats.

Now the roles are reversed. The dysfunction in the Democratic Party is poised to hand deliver the presidency to Donald J. Trump in a hand basket.

It is anybody’s guess what a Trump presidency will stand for after four years, but there can be little doubt that a divided Democratic Party makes a Trump presidency a sure reality. Apparently, Democratic Party members fail to grasp the fact they need more voters than the 13 million who have voted for Clinton in the primaries. Surely they know that nearly half of the votes cast, roughly 10 million, in the Democratic primaries have been cast for Bernie Sanders. Under this political equation, one plus one equals an unbeatable march to the White House.

However, listening to the tone used to denounce Sanders’ supporters one would think the Democrats were castigating members of a rival political party that they had little use for or any desire to unite with in a fall campaign.

The Democratic Party, to paraphrase a great Republican President,  finds itself on a great political battlefield, testing whether this nation will endure in slow incremental changes or if it will overturn centuries of rule from the wealthy in one fall election. A party divided cannot long endure, it cannot win a presidential election.

All over social media Democrats have taken up battle with one another. Long standing Democrats have denounced the Bernie or bust army as a band of rebels whose ideas are too radical for this election cycle. Meanwhile, Bernie’s army stands at the door, with wounded feelings, knocking, seeking entry and to join forces with the Democrats to defeat their common enemy.

 

I have read retorts from the Clinton loyalists who question whether Sanders, a life long independent, and his followers should have been allowed to participate in the Democratic Party primary process. This seems to me to be a self defeating posture. The Democratic Party will need every available progressive vote to defeat Trump.

Surely, it is far better to have this energy stumping for Clinton if she is the ultimate nominee than it would be to have them either on the sidelines, or voting for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate.

As an objective observer I can not see how the two sides can reconcile their differences by the first Tuesday in November to prevent the crowning of President Donald J. Trump. God, please bless America and God bless the ninety-nine percent!

Harold Michael Harvey is an American novelist and essayist, the author of Paper puzzle and Justice in the Round. He can be contacted at haroldmichaelharvey.com